The Sky Is Gray Metaphors

In "The Sky Is Gray" by Ernest Gaines eight year old James and his mother Octavia take the bus to Bayonne so that a dentist can look at James bad tooth. They must go to Bayonne because it is the location of an African American dentist and African Americans are not permitted to be treated by white dentists due to “Jim Crow’ laws. Jim Crow laws where laws at the local and state levels that enforced segregation. As James narrates this event he also imparts on the reader events from his past.
Throughout the story the reader encounters numerous metaphors. The first metaphor that the reader comes across is in the title of the story “The Sky is Gray” which represents the bleakness and poverty that encompasses Octavia and James lives. Octavia and

James reflects on both the red bird that Octavia forced him to kill and how before his father had left the family had been happy. This is interesting because their fathers died fighting in a war defending the rights of strangers against tyrants, while at home he and his family would have been oppressed because of their skin color. It is due to this war that his family is now struggling. I also see the red bird as representing the family before the father left. They were happy and full of vitality and cheer and Octavia forcing James to kill the bird not only indicates the family’s severe poverty and the need for James to be able to do what is necessary to take care of his family, but also the loss of the family’s strength and resources and the how he had tried to hide the pain in his tooth because at eight years old he was aware that his mother could not afford to take him to the dentist.
Meanwhile Octavia reflects on their home including her other children, her sister and the weather. This shows how the war has affected the wives of the fallen soldiers, before the war most families were two income households, or the father made enough to support the family on their own, but most employers paid their female employees significantly lower wages. This inhibited women from providing financially in the same ways their husbands

Once they arrive at Bayonne, they begin their long trek to the dentist’s office. When they arrive they find that the waiting room is already full. James overhears a conversation between a preacher and a student in which the preacher insists that people need to accept whatever they get in life without questioning the will of God and the student who believes that everything must be questioned saying “, "As long as you listen to what your heart tells you, you will have only what the white man gives you and nothing more." (Sky is Grey 1980). He also believes that that people should “question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. everything.” (Sky is Gray 1980). The preacher slaps the student across the face, but James has heard enough and decides that he wants to be like the student. Soon the nurse arrives and informs them that the dentist will not treat them until 1 o’clock. In this scene we see an example of how many African Americans believed in the 1940’s, most had a parent or grandparent who had been a slave and the South still ran itself that demanded subservience from African Americans. According to Tickamyer and Duncan children of black rural laborers in the south had no opportunity for advancement (Tickamyer and Duncan p.74) a third of the people living in rural areas lived in poverty compared to 15% in urban areas and 18% in central cities (Tickamyer